The Kestrel

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/k/kestrel/

I very much enjoy taking children and adults on mindful walks through English nature. The things we find and photograph become subjects for nature poetry.

Out on a poem-picture walk, Tom and I  saw and photographed a Kestrel, hovering by the river bank and then flying over some scrub-land. Kestrels have become fairly rare around Oxfordshire, where they used to be very common. There are signs of a comeback, I think.

I am not sure what a normal child of nine would make of Hopkins' Wind Hover, but Tom found it helpful in constructing our poem about this small but fascinating raptor.


Kestrel, Kestrel
Why do you fly so low in the sky?
If I was a bird
I'd call it absurd
Not to go flying impossibly high.

Well, Hello Tom, my friend
I am not round the bend
It's just I like flying quite low
And then you'll agree that it's easy to see
All of those creatures below.

How on earth do you manage to hover so much
When it's blowing a gale in the sky?
It's the way I evolved;
It's a problem that's solved;
And I really don't have to know why.

Sometimes you look like the angel of death
Oh, why do you steal from these creatures, their breath?
They make such very tasty meals.
I love to take a thing that squeals
And I don't care if it appeals.